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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Gratitude appreciates all assistance!

Friends:

Gratitude appreciates all assistance!

The Buddha indeed pointed out Gratitude as an important mental quality:These two people are hard to find in the world. Which two?
The one who is first to do a kindness, and
the one who is grateful and thankful for a kindness done.Anguttara Nikāya 2.118

I tell you, monks, there are two people who are not easy to repay.
Which two? Your mother & father. Even if you were to carry your mother
on one shoulder & your father on the other shoulder for 100 years, & were
to look after them by anointing, massaging, bathing, & rubbing their limbs,
and they were to defecate and urinate right there on your shoulders, you
would not thereby repay your parents. Even if you were to establish your
mother & father in absolute sovereignty over this great earth, abounding in
the seven treasures, you would not in that way repay your parents!
Why is that? Mothers and fathers do much for their children. They care for
them, they nourish them for long, and they introduce them to this world.
But anyone who rouses his unbelieving mother & father, settles & establishes
them in faith; rouses his immoral mother & father, establishes them in virtue;
rouses his stingy mother & father, settles & establishes them in generosity;
rouses his unwise mother & father, settles & establishes them on a new level
of understanding: It is in this way that one truly repays one's mother's and
father's many longstanding services.Anguttara Nikāya 2.32

Mother & father, compassionate to their family, are called Brahma, first teachers,
those worthy of gifts from their children. So the wise should pay them homage,
honour them with food & drink, clothing & bedding, and anointing, bathing, washing
their feet. Performing these services to their parents, the wise are praised right
here and after death rejoice in heaven.Itivuttaka 106

A Tathagata is worshipped, honoured, respected, thanked & shown gratitude
by any follower, who keeps practicing the Dhamma in accordance with true
Dhamma, who keeps practicing masterfully, who lives in and by the Dhamma!Digha Nikāya 16

We will undertake & practice those qualities that makes one a contemplative,
so that all those who helped us by services of robes, alms-food, lodging, and
medicines will bring them great fruit and great future reward. Majjhima Nikāya 39

Comments:In Pali, the word for gratitude = kataññu literally means to have a sense of
what was done for one in the past even when long ago. Remembering all help!
A network of kindness and gratitude is what sustains whatever goodness
there is and ever will be in this - otherwise destitute & impoverished - world!